88 .... THE NEW YOR.KER., NOVEMBER. 22, 1993 ........ ....." - "';' ".; - .-P 0..."...": -f'>- '';'' ..-Þ ..u unJ f it # If II Iff t # t. And that's certainly where my mother's despair began. So there was a lot more involved than having Jim Jones stand- ing in the pulpit saying, 'O.K., we're going to die now.' There was fatigue. I think everybody was defeated and tired. They wanted relief from the constant emotional roller coaster that my father put you through. I don't know. These are things I don't know. Not only did all these things contribute but the weather coöperated! It clouded over. The wind picked up. It was gray and black. It threatened rain. E v- erything contributed to set the scene for what happened. And I don't know. I just don't believe that I was stronger than some of the people who died down there. "There were more than nine hundred people there, and one of them was Mar- celine Jones. I know what Marceline Jones was made of, and she didn't stop it. We were young and we were strong and we knew where the weapons were, and we knew who was holding them. But I also know the respect that people had for my mother, and I know that my mother did not sit blindly by and say, 'Yeah, let's take the poison.'" Stephan had heard later that Marceline had to be physically restrained while the babies were being killed A young man named Gary Johnson, whom everybody called Pancho, had tried to protect her. But then Jim Jones ordered Pancho to take his own life. The story of Pancho's intervention and death means a lot to Stephan, and not only because it tells him that his mother resisted. "What happened to Pancho is a wonderful example, no mat- ter how misguided it was. He took the poison because my father told him to take it, O.K.? What a brave and devoted and wondeiful act it was, in retrospect. If you set aside the loss, and the tragedy, and even the ridiculousness of what hap- pened in that moment, and you just step inside the shoes of a young man with years and years ahead of him, who, on the one hand, is fighting against my I cr;;;;: "1 don't know what the hell happened-one minute rm at work in Flint, Michigan, then there's a giant sucking sound and suddenly here 1 am in Mexico. " sisters and his little brother, he said. He began to cry again. Back in San Francisco, he had driven a tow truck for a while, and then had begun helping out Stephan, who had started a business installing office furni- ture. Tim had met Lorna on a job. "He wouldn't leave me alone," she said, laughIng. She looked at Tim with affectionate concern. "I was real curious about him," she continued. "And I was a little afraid of him " ''You were afraid of me?" Tim said, in surprIse. "Because of your past, babe. I think you need to be aware that a lot of people who don't know you, and only know your connection to the name, are intimi- dated, and afraid of you." "I think that now it doesn't scare any- body, because it's over," Tim said. ' 'Y ' " L . d ou re wrong, orna Sal . Like Jimmy, Tim had thought of changing his name-in his case, of going back to Tupper. When he first broached the subject, Lorna asked him to do it before their daughter, Chelsea, was old enough to know. That struck Tim like a fist. "Honey, I'm not ashamed . . of myself:" he told her. "She has to live with who I am. I'm going to make her secure in her life. I'm going to take care of her. But Chelsea is going to know who I am and where I came from." " I F anybody could have stopped it, Tim would have," Stephan agreed. "I want him to let go of that. It's ripping his guts out." Stephan is more ambivalent about what he himself might have done. He might have taken the poison-he's not sure. Loyalty to the community played a large part in the decision of the people to kill themselves, Stephan believes. On a tape recording from the last night, Jones makes this point explicitly: "Are you gonna separate yourself from who- ever shot the congressman?" he asks his people. They respond, "No, no-hell, no." Stephan had the opportunity to talk to two of the Temple members who had escaped into the jungle. "Everybody was under the impression that we "-the brothers-"were already out exacting re- venge on the enemies of the Temple, and were giving our lives in that effort," he said. "So it became a loyalty to us.